


Before the Storm

by persephone20



Category: True Blood
Genre: F/M, Humour, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-29
Updated: 2011-08-17
Packaged: 2017-10-20 20:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/216791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephone20/pseuds/persephone20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sort of an AU of early season four Sookie/Eric following the same plot points as the series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Season four spoilers; nothing beyond the third episode.

I'd had so little chance of having the kind of life everyone took for granted. Word of the day calendars just to increase my vocabulary was not something every other girl had to pick up because they couldn't go to school without hearing what everyone else said. I know a lot of people were against it but, for me, being around vampires just made sense. I couldn't remember anymore what it had felt like not to have people in my head all the time.

And Eric had been the first thought I'd had when I'd come back.

Not _straight_ away. That thought had been reserved for 'Who the hell are you boys and what the hell are you doing telling me I can't come into my house' thoughts, or even 'What do you mean I've been away for more than a year?!' thoughts. But right after that... Eric's name had floated into my mind. What had he thought for the last year and more that I'd been missing? What had he done?

Not that I'd ever tell him any thing of that, of course.

And then he'd sped up to my house. Right on time. Or... a little later than _right_ on time. That was to be expected, after all. Shreveport was a lot farther away than Bill Compton's estate. That didn't make any easier the disappointment I felt when it was Bill I had to deal with first. Or when Eric politely left when Bill told him so. That wasn't like Eric at all.

His words, though. I had already come to see just how much Jason had given up hope of me ever returning. And Bill... Well, a girl just didn't happen to believe in anything much Bill said anymore after what he had done to me.

Still, none of that stopped me from closing my eyes after Bill, Jason and Andy Belfleur left, and just whispering his name.

"Eric..."

He would have gone all the way back to Shreveport twice over in the time it had taken me to wrap up the conversations with Andy and Bill. Yet he was there again, standing a mere several feet from me the second after Bill had vanished, and the other two had driven off.

My lips parted. I hardly knew what to say.

"I don't know why I did that," I said. It was honesty, of a sort. My grams had always brought me up not to tell a lie to anybody and, considering how I could hear other peoples' thoughts and they couldn't hear mine, it didn't seem fair to lie anyhow. I'd decided to myself not 10 minutes ago that I'd not be letting Eric have any idea of my feelings for him, beyond the blood of his that still ran through my body. Yet here I was... giving him a big old sign.

The fact that he was still standing several feet from me had to be a sign of respect for personal space.

"I know you've been through a lot," he began, which just told me that he hadn't gone far in the first place if he'd heard everything that had gone on after he'd supposedly left. But, strangely, I couldn't feel too upset about that. "Let me be the first to tell you that I won't overstep boundaries while you are trying to get your feet again."

I felt my lips parting in a smile before I could help myself. "Well, I appreciate that, Eric."

Eric nodded his head, as if to say that that was just so. "I should probably leave you to your sleep. You're probably very tired after everything you've been through." He paused then, despite his words, he took a step closer towards me. "Of course, if you're not tired and would like to invite me in again..."

There was that smile, on his lips and around his eyes, sneaky as ever. And I would not be accepting that invitation. No way. No how.

"Thank you again for your kindness, Eric. I'll be taking that sleep now. Alone," I added, not unkindly, just in case it was in any way unclear to him.

He nodded his head, then stepped back again, the glitter of a smile still in his eyes, before he was off.

*

 _Just put me inside you,  
I will never, ever leave,  
Just put me inside you,  
I will never, ever leave you._


	2. Chapter 2

Coming back was nothing like I'd thought it would be. Maybe if I'd realised I'd been gone for a good long while, that would have been different, but I'd thought I was gone for nothing more than a few hours. You'd think that would mean that people would be willing to cut me a little bit of slack.

After having an argument with Sam Merlotte on the subject, I realised that this just wasn't so. He'd been nice enough to let me having my job back, sure, but he never let me forget how much everyone had worried about me while I was gone. Now, I realise he's entitled to the way he's feeling, but I think I'm entitled to the way I'm feeling just as much. I let him have it.

Fighting with Sam always leaves me feel awful afterwards. Not just because he's my boss, but that never helps. It usually ends in me taking off my apron and slamming out the door. In a couple of hours, or after the shift ends, he'll contact me again, and we'll both say how we're sorry for yelling but, in the meantime, it just doesn't feel good.

Time was, when I used to feel crappy, I'd just go over to Bill's place and he would make me feel better. There was a part of me that wanted to do that tonight, as I walked through the carpark at Merlotte's and into my car. I sat in the driver's side, my head against the backs of my wrists, half expecting Sam to come out early and apologise. But he didn't.

I didn't really have any place to go. Everyone was so angry at me. Or they were relieved I was back, and angry. Andy Belfleur's reaction hadn't been unusual, just the first of its kind, I was finding. Tara wasn't here anymore but, if she had been, I had no doubt that she would have been angry at me too.

After another minute or two in my car, I turned the engine on and reversed the car with a little bit of temper. There was one person I knew I could go to who wasn't angry, who had never given up on me, he said. And since everyone was already angry at me any how, I didn't see how they'd mind much more if they found out I'd gone to Shreveport, and Fangtasia.

There were a lot of cars out the front of Fangasia, which was odd seeing as how the bar wasn't open for customers yet. But, it was after dark, and Eric would have sensed me arriving. He was standing out the front and waiting for me as my car pulled in.

"Not here," he said as I opened my door. He reached for my hand and I gave it to him reflexively, figuring he just wanted to help me out of the car. He did that, but then he led me around the side of Fangtasia.

"Hey!" I said. I hadn't even locked my car behind us. And I didn't much like this being led along like a sheep either.

Eric glanced behind him to see that I gazed longingly at my car. "Nobody will break into your car here," he assured me, but that did nothing to reassure me where the being dragged by a 1000 year old vampire was concerned.

We went into the club through a side entrance that I hadn't been aware of. It was near the dungeon, the one that Eric usually took pains to make sure I went nowhere near. Given that this was a unique opportunity to be so close to the dungeon, I tried to commit as much of it to memory, along with a couple of questions about the use of some things that rose in my head unbidden.

"Not your kind of thing," Eric told me. His soft voice breaking the silence down here startled me and then I mentally told myself off for being so transparent. Perhaps there was too much of a good thing if it caused me to forget how easy it was to pick up thoughts, whether by telepathy, or Eric's blood in this case. "But I'd be happy to experiment with some of these things if you were curious."

"No! Thank you," I told him in no uncertain terms. Or, what I hoped were no uncertain terms. With Eric, you could never quite be sure.

He chuckled in front of me, but he was no longer touching me. I told myself that I was grateful for that. Our blood link, I thought, was something a little like my telepathy, which physical contact improved. Eric always seemed to have such a bead on me that I didn't think I wanted to be helping him out.

"So, what brings you here tonight, Sookie? I wasn't expecting you. Could it be that you missed my company?" His voice was liquid seduction and we both knew I knew it. The test was merely in doing my best to refrain from acting on it. Always before, I had been able to parade Bill in front of me as something that would help my restraint. But his questions gave me pause. Why had I come here, of all places? It couldn't be that Bill had been the only thing stopping me from giving into Eric's allure.

"Everyone else is angry at me." I meant the words to come out all sassy, a little bit devil-may-care but I don't. The words didn't come out that way, not at all. It made me deeply sad to have worried my friends so much by my absence. Sadder still that they were angry at me about it now. But I shook my head. I certainly hadn't come here to be self-pitying. "You never lost hope that I would come back, so it stands to reason that you're not angry at me." I shrugged, making no more of my appearance at his club than that.

"I never lost hope. That doesn't mean I wasn't angry." Eric looked me up and down. "However, here you are, returned in one piece and having had no intent to leave us. So I find it quite hard to hold onto my anger. Especially if that makes me a more palatable person for you to visit."

I looked away from him then. He took everything and made it into a sexual inneuendo between us. Yet, he was right. I had come here because he was still the most palatable person for me to see right now.

"Why are there so many people here before opening hours?" I asked, changing the subject rather deliberately.

"Vampire stuff," Eric said. He wasn't going to tell me more until I raised my eyebrows. Maybe he caught a whiff of how inclined I was to walk away from him if he was going to keep closed up. Maybe the dynamics between us were changing in a way that was less one-sided than I had always thought. He opened up. "Cleaning up the mess after Russel Edgington."

"Ah," I said. One word, and it summed up the great debacle that had been Russel Edgington ripping out a television broadcaster's heart on live television, thereby throwing life into chaos for vampires and humas alike. "I... uh, it's probably not helpful that I'm here," I realised.

"Probably not," Eric said, casting a glance up to the public level of his club. "But I find that I don't wish you to leave."

I followed the direction of his gaze. "If you need to be up there..."

"Pam is taking care of it," he answered me.

I raised both of my eyebrows very deliberately. "Pam is taking charge of vampire/human relations? And you're confident nothing's will go wrong?" Despite myself, amusement lighted my face at the kinds of ways I imagined Pam 'taking care of it'.

My answer was that Eric grimaced. A lot. Which made me smirk just a little bit more. "Perhaps I had better go up to supervise," he said. But his eyes remained trained on me.

"And I will just wait in my car until the bar opens for the night." Truthfully, I had nowhere better to go.

Eric nodded abruptly, then turned away from me as though it were better leaving on this note before I had a chance to change my mind.

"I will see you in the club once it opens," he confirmed, and then he was gone.

*


	3. Chapter 3

The dedicated members of the Fellowship of the Sun were outside and picketing when I came to return to my car. That was surprising in itself, but it would have been more surprising had Eric not already informed me about the damage control going on inside his club. This, I supposed, was the damage they were trying to control.

Thinking back to our interactions with the Fellowship a couple of years before, it didn't seem to me that it was the kind of damage that could be controlled. However, if anyone could do it...

In my car, and trying to block out the kind of hate coming out of the minds of those picketers, I found myself thinking back to the first time Eric had gotten me to drink his blood. I found, though I returned to the memory with habitual ire, the memory was far enough back now so as to have lost the fire of anger it once had. I found, as I was thinking back now, that I was more inclined to think in terms of Eric's ingenuity.

Silly thoughts. But they were easier to think on than the repetitive chants that went without end in the back of my awareness. Chanting that only got more incensed the later the evening went.

By the time that the vampires returned to their parked cars and were starting to drive away, I was starting to have some mighty hate-filled thoughts myself, and not towards the vampires. It was with quick steps that I left my car and hurried into Fangtasia. Still, it was not before the words 'fangbanger!!' hit me like verbal missiles from behind.

"Hello Sookie. What brings you here to Fangtasia?" Pam's eyelids were brightly painted and lazy over glittering eyes. "Oh, foolish me. You're here to see Eric. Of course."

"Hello Pam. Someone spit in your blood today?" It was a catty reply, and I don't know what prompted me to make it, except that Pam always seemed to have this way about her that said she had woken up on the wrong side of the coffin.

For a second, Pam's eyes flashed in response to my words, then a smile curved her lips, and she actually looked... interested. In me.

"If we can't find Eric, I'm sure there is some way we can find a way to pass the time. With the fire you've got inside that little body of yours..."

Oh. Great.

"That won't be necessary, Pam." Eric's voice came abruptly from the doorway to his office, and I tried not to let my relief show too much on my face. Of course, the smug expression on his lips showed just how much I managed to shield that down the blood link between us. Not very much at all.

"Very well," said Pam, looking unaccountably disappointed, then turning her disappointment aside as she cast her eyes over other customers in the venue.

I tried very hard to ignore that as I stepped around her to make my way to Eric.

Very shortly, we were closed together within his office.

He smiled at me, fangs not taking very long to appear at all. "Now, where were we?"

"Ah." My eyelids fluttered quickly, and I found myself suddenly stuck in the feeling that I had bitten off more than I could chew. I tried to save it with the smile I pulled out every time I felt uncomfortable but didn't want the person in front of me to know it. "You know, I just... I just realised I really don't have any place being here!"

"Sookie..." Eric's voice was a warning.

I shook my head against his words, taking a breath and feeling more comfortable hiding behind that persona of Brainless Waitress that people commonly mistook me for at Merlotte's. "I really should be going home. You understand."

If my leaving his office had the look of running away, Eric sure understood that as well. Actually, I was congratulating myself on somehow having managed to successfully divert him until I could sort my mind out all the way home and up till I came out of my shower and started getting dressed into my nightie.

Right up to the point where I threw my dressing gown aside and it didn't hit the ground.

"Eric!"

My eyes opened real wide. He was in my house. He was in my house! Without an invitation. What the he...?

He had the decency at least to pass me my dressing gown, when I refused to say anything to him or even look at him until that was done. Funny, he had precious little decency for anything else.

"I own the house. And you."

That was _rich!_ "And what happened to giving me the space I needed until I found my feet again?" I demanded, at the same time as feeling rather ill equipped to demand anything while I was standing there in my fluffy blue dressing gown and wet, unstyled hair.

Eric seemed unmoved. Certainly he didn't seem put off by my unstyled hair. That I even thought that infuriated me more.

He shrugged. "I am not biting you, am I? If I wanted your blood, I could have it now, and nothing could stop me. I'm willing to give you the space you need to decide you want to be mine."

I shook my head, barely believing he was saying this. At least Bill had had the decency to try to impress my grams! Talk like this, I couldn't even imagine what she would have thought if she'd heard him speaking this way.

"I don't care that you own it," I said, starting to storm towards him, determined to storm _through_ him on my way to the front door if he didn't move out of the way first. "This is still _my_ house, and you are _not_ welcome, Eric Northman!"

He grinned, and I wondered how I had ever thought that that smile, with fangs completely unsheathed, had ever seemed sexy to me. "You only call me by my full name when you're really angry at me. I find I like it."

I swallowed. "Well, you can like it from outside, for all I care!" I informed him.

He tipped his head to the side and studied me. "There are two sides to you, miss Sookie Stackhouse. Are you aware of that, I wonder?" He sheathed his fangs and went on without waiting for me to answer. "The side of you that ran away from Fangtasia is hardly in evidence anymore. I find myself liking this side of you much better. This is the side that's going to crave to be mine, that's going to hunger for the power that I can give her."

"Go to hell, Eric!" I told him, feeling disgust, in no small amount because I'd wondered similar thoughts to myself on occasion.

Eric nodded his head to me once. "Goodnight, Sookie." He smirked. "Pleasant dreams." And then he was off, a blur in the night, before I could even slam the door behind him.

*

 _As black as the night can get  
everthing is safer now  
there's always a way to forget  
once you learn to find a way how..._


	4. Chapter 4

A night of salacious imaginings of exactly what kinds of things Eric Northman could do to me were in no way improved by the presents that I came to see the vampire himself had somehow arranged to have dropped at my house while I'd been out getting shopping.

The fact that he had also managed to ruin a perfectly good reunion between Tara and I was enough to mean that he deserved a serious yelling at. Let's see how he liked this Sookie Stackhouse this time!

When I pulled up at Fangtasia, I was struck by how different it was from just the day before. That the same picketers were back again only highlighted the differences. We'd had a moment, I knew it. And yet, Eric had managed to stuff it up within hours. I refused to see that that wasn't wholly fair as I slammed my car door and stomped into the vampire club.

"Shut up or get some new chants already!" I yelled out to the Fellowship in aggravation, which only had the effect of louder yells of 'FANGBANGER!!!' until I disappeared behind its doors.

I felt a momentary disorientation stepping into the club. What was there was, for a moment, overlayed by the beginning of dreams from the night before.

 _"Now where were we? Ah yes..."_

 _Eric moved towards me and he lay two fingers over me lips before I could say anything that would allow me an easy exit. What was strange though, was the fact that I didn't want an easy exit. I didn't want to go anywhere. As my lips lifted in a smile behind his fingers, he lifted them away._

 _"My Sookie," he said, before leaning day and taking my lips in a passionate kiss._

"Sookie. Sookie! For God's sake, Sookie, don't just stand there like that." Eric was looking around the club, glaring at anyone who was looking out way. His fingers were vice-like around my upper arm, and he was pulling me in the direction of his office before it even occurred to me to put up a fight. "What do you think you were doing?" he asked me in a hiss.

I certainly wasn't going to admit what had really been going on in my head, though he got the sense of embarrassment loud and clear.

Once in his office, he let go of me and thrust me in front of him before crossing his arms. That was strange in itself. I didn't think I could remember the last time Eric had pushed me _away_ from him.

"This isn't working," Eric said to me and my mouth worked in silence because I had no idea what to say to that.

What on earth was he talking about?

"We aren't going to get anywhere like this. With you not trusting me." He was pacing. He was... Was he _fidgeting?_

"Eric..." I started, not understanding, though his feelings of unease were plainly obvious.

Eric turned to me, piercing blue eyes boring deeply into me. My mouth went dry, and I forgot everything I'd been about to say under the intensity of that gaze.

The 1000 year old vampire made a sound that sounded very much like a snort and shook his head violently. "None of this is going as I planned it. Do you know how infuriating it is? How infuriating to have these... _feelings_ and be powerless to do anything about it." He glared at her. "How irritating that the very thing that draws me to you leaves you immune to glamour."

"Feelings shouldn't really be something you glamour onto someone, should they?" I hazarded to say.

"Oh?" Eric raised an eyebrow in my direction, still careful to keep the minimum safe distance between us. Considering the electricity that seemed to be sparking off him right then, I can't say I wasn't pleased by this. "How else would you suggest?"

Forgetting for a moment that I was the one he was supposedly railing against being unable to glamour? "Well, buying flowers is a classic for a reason. You know, buying a woman's house out from under her just isn't the kind of turn on you seem to expect."

Eric definitely snorted at that. "So I have found," he said, very drolly.

I did my very best to keep my lips from curving up and belaying my amusement at that. I did not think that would be very appreciated right then. Trouble was, I didn't rightly know what exactly would be appreciated. My eyes skated away from him, desperately clinging to various different parts of his office as though any single object might offer me a vital answer.

"Sookie."

Just like that, Eric drew my eyes back to him.

I wet my lips with my tongue, and tried not to notice the way that drew his eyes straight to my mouth. "Yes, Eric?" I asked, very politely.

He was suddenly standing directly in front of me, minimum safe distance completely forgotten in that moment. "How does a woman feel about being kissed?"

It's fair to say that he didn't really wait for me to make an answer, just as it's very fair to say that somewhere very deep within me tugged straight out towards him the instant his lips made contact with mine. I'd dreamt of this often enough that I expected my own reactions. Needless to say, I was relieved when his arm tightened around me, taking my weight as my knees turned to something matching the consistency of melted butter.

"Eric..." I murmured, when he pulled far enough back from me that his forehead rested against mine and my mouth was free for speaking again.

"Shh..." Eric's eyes weren't open. He was clearly trying to hold onto this moment. My mind was rapidly trying to make sense out of it.

"This is only happening because I'm confused... your blood" I started to try to say, but Eric was quick in trying to shut me up.

"That is not true, and you know it," he said with a growl.

Looking up into his eyes, I swallowed, because I realised that I could not fight the truth of that statement anymore, and that scared me.

Just like in the dream, his hand moved through my hair and down the side of my face. His touch was gentler than I had imagined it, even in dream.

"I would never hurt you," he said, though his eyes were still the eyes of a 1000 year old killer and vampire, so it was hard to believe the words exactly. I just nodded.

Eric looked up and, abruptly, he swore.

"What is it?" I asked, with what I would like to think was a remarkable amount of self restraint considering what had just been happening.

Eric looked back down to me, and his eyes seemed to soften for just a moment, before his jaw hardened and his eyes weren't far behind.

"It seems that I'm being summoned to my king," Eric said, disgust dripping off the word 'king'.

"Oh," I said. Truth was, I didn't know what else to say. It was a bit weird, though, having you old lover calling away your new lover. I bit my lip, wondering just how clearly I'd broadcasted and how much, if any, of it Eric had picked up.

Eric leaned over and stole a kiss, lightning quick. "I will be back to finish this later, my lover." And then he was standing up, and buttoning his jeans.

And I was just thinking, I'll never going to get used to the speed that vampires have.

*


	5. Chapter 5

Eric stood before his king, only just managing to keep the smug smirk from his features at the thoguht of the dishevelled Sookie that he had left behind in Fangtasia. He was only half paying attention to whatever Bill was saying. Most of him was just thinking of what he would do with Sookie if she decided that she suddenly had to disappear again upon being reunited with him when he returned to Fangtasia.

He would himself see a swift end to any such proclamations.

There was a particular little smile on his face for the fact that he was thinking these thoughts at the same time as standing in front of Bill who was asking him if there was any way that he would consider relinquishing his property.

"I don't think so, no."

The little smile increased.

Bill didn't like it at all. He was king now. He was to be afforded some certain amount of respect. Having had the power behind him to kill Sophie-Anne, he knew that it would be no difficulty for him to hasten Eric to the final death. However, he would see if he couldn't get one last usefulness out of the older vampire before removing him from his own and Sookie's lives once and for all.

"You remember what a necromancer can do."

Suddenly serious, Eric's eyes flashed at Bill. "Yes. I was there."

"Then you know what you have to do."

Bill sat back in his chair with some satisfaction after sending Eric away, feeling it unfortunate that Katerina was currently occupied and therefore unable to assist him with his own appetites.

*

 _You're gonna catch a cold  
From the ice inside your soul  
Don't come back for me  
Don't come back at all  
Who do you think you are?_


	6. Chapter 6

Pam had been berating me for at least half an hour. To be honest, until now, I really hadn't thought she cared so much about what happened between Eric and I. I said as much.

To that, she merely raised one eyebrow.

"He is my maker," she answered for me, as though that cleared everything up.

Obviously, as I was not a vampire, it didn't clear anything up for me at all, but I refrained from saying that.

Pam's tirade continued. By the end, it could be summed up into three categories. One: Eric was rich. Two: Eric was influential. Three: He was never going to give up his property, so I may as well stop trying to convince his childe to work against him. Okay, that was a fair point, actually.

Oh, there was a fourth. And, somehow, the fourth had a particular way of making all the rest pointless.

"In his own way, he cares for you."

My eyes flickered and I almost stepped back, so surprised was I at this admission from Pam. We had been talking for so long now that I'd thought there was nothing at all new that would be entered into the conversation.

Pam looked me up and down. "Oh, have I surprised you?" she drawled.

"No, uh, I..." Well, that was a helpful argument I seemed to be putting together there.

"I don't know why," she said, looking to her fingernails as though she was thoroughly bored by this conversation, but I could see the calculating expression behind her eyes. She wasn't inspecting her fingernails at all. "Why else do you think he wastes so much energy on you?"

"I, well... I thought..." I started, winding up for a steller argument, I was sure. "It's not every day that he meets someone who says no." There, I thought. It even sounded mostly convincing to my ear.

"Right," Pam replied, drawing out the vowel sound. She snapped her hand and fingernails down by her side, giving away all pretence. "There's that. I part own a very busy club. Right now, it's going unwatched while I sit here talking to you. I now see how pointless that activity is, so..." She stepped away towards me, choosing the opportunity to show off her swaying behind over vampire speed. "I'm sure you can find something to entertain yourself in here while I'm gone."

And she was gone.

Pam wasn't wrong about finding something to entertain myself. Damn her. If it had been hard to put Eric out of my head while I'd been waiting in my car for him the night before, it was a darn sight harder to do now that my mind had been on him for the better part of an hour. That had probably been Pam's idea all along. Getting what her maker wanted for him. Wouldn't he be pleased to find me still ready and waiting when he came back from Bill's.

Except... it was beginning to be harder to keep sight of why it was that I was fighting Eric. The blood was a problem, yes, but I'd started my relationship with Bill after drinking his blood and never even knowing what that stuff did to a girl. At least Eric was being honest. He'd been the one to tell me about Bill, thus making sure that I would never be taken in so easily again. And that was what I'd been sure I was doing in fighting Eric.

Until recently.

There were magazines and books in the room. Nothing of any importance was left out in the open, I was sure, but I never investigated any of it. At one point, I looked up at the clock on the wall and realised another half hour had passed. Together with Pam and my discussion, that was almost an hour and a half that Eric had been gone. Where was he?

It took me another five or ten minutes of being aware how long Eric had been gone before it became clear to me that he wasn't coming back any time soon. Surely whatever Bill wanted to talk to him about couldn't be taking this long?

When I strode back out into the main area of Fangtasia, Pam was one of the first vampires I saw.

"Sookie. What a delight," Pam said, her voice making it clear that it was not.

"Whatever. Pam, can you feel where Eric is? He should have been back by now."

Pam did that thing vampires do, that far away look in the eyes that says they are searching for their maker. I thought that I saw a glimmer of worry cross her eyes before the familiar mask snapped back into place and she was looking back down at me.

"How should I know? I'm not his keeper. I only know where he is when he wants me to know."

And after 45 minutes of conversation tonight, that was the last Pam was willing to give. Well, fine, I thought to myself. I certainly wasn't going to be sticking around here any longer if this was the only reception I could expect. And if Eric really did want to find me again, well, it wasn't as if he couldn't find me at _my_ home.

It was as I was driving home from Fantasia that I saw a shirtless man walking slowly along the side of the road. I slowed my car down accordingly, wanting to give him lots of time to be aware that I was there and also because I didn't really want to be going very fast if he decided to dart out and do something stupid. Who knew what shirtless men walking on the side of roads in the middle of the night were capable of?

Then, as my car reached closer to him, I began to make out familiarities in the person walking and in Eric. It was just because he was on my mind, I told myself, still determined to drive on by. My experiences in the last three years had well and truly taught me that it wasn't safe for a young woman to go out of her way to help a male stranger.

Finally, I was about to pass him by, and he looked at me.

"Eric??" I said, because it was. There was no doubting it now. "Why are you walking along the road without your shirt? You were meant to meet me at Fangtasia!" The strangeness of all of this hit me and I couldn't ask any further questions for the rush of about twenty questions that all pushed to my mouth, all wanting to be asked at once.

All of that vanished quick from my head as soon as Eric spoke to me. "Who are you?"

My head spun. "Who am I? Why, I'm only Sookie Stackhouse, the woman you left at Fantasia so you could meet the call of your king and..." I shook my head, because he was still looking blankly at me through the half open window of my car. Something was really, _really_ wrong here. "You really don't remember who you are?" I asked him, incredulous.

He didn't answer that. I suppose it was obvious. Instead of answering, he straightened and gazed off as though he were about to continue walking. But I couldn't have that. It didn't matter that I didn't know exactly what I felt for this man, I knew I felt something, friendship at the very least. And one didn't leave friends to continue walking along dark roads late at night with no recollection of who they were. Grams just hadn't brought me up that way.

"Come on, Eric," I said, reaching over and pushing open the passenger door. "Get in. I'll drive you... home?" I tested out the word, more for myself than him. If he was telling the truth about not remembering who he was, driving him one place or another would be all the same to him. Strangely, the distinction of 'my home' or 'his' didn't stick in my craw the way it usually did.

He looked back at me then, and real strangely too. I felt suddenly as though I was not so happy to have opened the passenger side door.

He asked, "Why do you smell so good?"

I recoiled. Swallowed. Blinked a lot. But Eric was still there, still staring at me as though I was food and he was trying to figure out the best way to get to it. Uncomfortable, I tried to shrug my hair over my neck so that it made it less visible, but that didn't do much. Eric had never looked at me like this before, not even on our first meeting as I stood beside Bill. Then there'd been curiosity. The time after, there'd only been interest in what I could do for him. I hadn't consciously realised how much things had changed since then until Pam brought it up into my face. But what I'd seen for myself and what Pam had described was no longer there in his eyes. Only the hunger remained. Hunger not tempered by any personal affection. Hunger for fairy blood that he didn't even know I had yet.

I tried to laugh it off. "Well, now, that's not very polite. Do you want a lift or not?" At this point, though, I was just as willing not to give him a lift as I'd been to give him one before. "Cause I can keep on going..."

"Don't go."

The words were soft. Softer than any words I'd heard from Eric in the past. This gave me pause.

"Okay then," I said, trying to act as though all of this were perfectly normal. There was still a hesitation before I invited him to get in the car. "Get in." Though I smiled, I was very aware that my neck was bare. I was aware of his eyes on me every minute of the time it took to drive to my house.


	7. Chapter 7

To be truthful, I felt a little weird lying to Eric about his never been to my house before. The lie came straight to my tongue out of a dumb sense of not knowing what else to do. Seeing him skirt around the rug had me torn between exasperation, and keeping a distance between us at least until... well, at least, anyway. I tried not to let any of this show. He was confused enough as it was that he probably didn't notice.

Just the very fact of that sentence was absolutely tripping me _out._

Pam's appearance helped clear things up. Until she started speaking. That was the trouble with lies. They were very quickly uncovered and Pam was on Pam's side, not mine. She'd already established how little the idea of siding with me against Eric appealed.

Having Pam then pushed across the room was... an experience. But it didn't clear anything up.

The more that I watched Eric, and I watched him plenty believe me, the more I realised this was not the Viking vampire I had fallen in love with. I tried to fob him off onto Pam, onto Alceed, saying to them and to myself that it just wasn't my responsibly to Eric to take care of him.

Alceed was just too busy with Debbie again and I just didn't have the heart to pile more troubles on him than that. However, I saw the judgement coming from Pam, judgement that assessed just how much Eric would have taken care of me if our positions were reversed. Well that's fine. She could judge me. It wasn't her good opinion I was worried about anyway.

This was the thing that I didn't tell anyone, not even myself, for a very long time. He wasn't going to like any of this when he came back to himself. I knew that. All I didn't know was where that left me. Surely giving him space until the spell was reversed and he was returned to himself was the right thing to do?

*

He speaks Swedish in his sleep. I check on him sometimes when I finish with a shift at Merlotte's, just before the dawn takes him and he doesn't say anything at all. I watch him after he arises at dusk, going straight to the fridge for the bottles of True Blood I keep there for him. Most of the time he forgets to put on a shirt, but it's not sexual, it's not presumptuous. I watch him when he doesn't know I'm looking. I suspect he does the same to me. It's kind of comfortable, in its way.

I mourn my Viking vampire, even as I continue to be drawn to the sweet, amnesiac prince who has been left in his place. The lines around his lips are softened with smiles now, where before they were always stern and righteous. He tells jokes! I didn't even know Eric knew jokes.

Behind it all, I know that someone's going to pay for all of this when the spell eventually gets broken.

I know that someone's likely going to be me.


End file.
